by my blood
by taee
Summary: The adrenaline high, the clash of steel in your palms, the blood that burns fierce and wild; the battlefield is where Elesis lives and dies over and over again, and she loves it far too much. (It's not about killing, no matter how much the dark el in her veins sing that it is.)
1. thirst

Disclaimer: I don't own Elsword.

I changed some things, like at what point Elesis becomes Crimson Avenger. Her personality may be kind of off too, same with Ain. Also I read somewhere on Elwiki that Ain doesn't call anyone by their name except for Elsword, so look out for that.

* * *

BY MY BLOOD

Hamel isn't a pleasant experience. But they didn't expect anything else when all there is to look forward to are endless battles, and all they have in the present are tired limbs, weary souls, and more injuries.

They accumulate, the wounds. Scars on top of scars, new blood to wash away the old.

Hamel is routine.

There are the demons, and there is them. The demons must be eliminated, and that is what they do.

They come out of Hamel injured, but alive, though in some ways, Ms. Knight Captain doesn't come back at all.

* * *

The thirst for battle is like this.

While in a battle, there is blood. There is your enemy's, and there is yours. There is life in your veins that cries its presence to the the world in the form of your blade. _I'm alive_ , it screams, dim light glancing off of cold metal warm with red. I'm _alive_ , it says, carving a path through the air into yet another body. ( _I'm alive I'm alive I'm alive I'm alive_ and the subtly implied _you're not_.)

But it's not about killing. The killing is only a side condition set by circumstance.

It's about taking.

You take their name and it defines you. Strength doesn't speak to others without stolen names in its dictionary. You take their essence, as it pours into the world and their weapon and their movement. It's their story, their will, their conviction, and you try and take it all because you believe that yours is the right one instead.

It's about giving.

You give your life to the battle. It may or may not be taken, but the offering must be made.

It's about living and dying. It's about being. It's about feeling.

When does the battle start? From first sight? From first breath, first shot, first swing, first word?

It starts when it does. You know it by your blood. It quickens, it burns. It's unbearable, nearly. It kills you, breathes life into you again, and the whole time it just burns like something fierce and wild in the best way. Try and resist it and fight with your mind instead but it never works. So you let the bloodflow take over and you ride it out.

You are the blood, the sword that dances, the adrenaline high, all inhibitions abandoned somewhere near one of the firsts of the battle.

To fight is to feel. To feel more alive, to feel the danger sinking teeth into your heart, and to feel memories of love in the face of death. To feel the wind rushing through your hair, the clash of steel in your palms.

The battlefield is where Elesis is lives and dies over and over again, and she loves it too much. (She misses it so much.)

In this way, she's different from her brother.

He fights with his duties and morals, and so does Elesis, but sometimes all she wants is to cast them aside and block out the noise and just _feel_.

She can't.

She can't, though she wants to and maybe that's why she purposefully bites off much more than she can swallow, and when the demons surround her and she's got a hole in her side plus a twisted ankle and the metaphorical noose finally tightens around her cold neck and she hears the dark El sing it's soft promises into her stagnant blood, she accepts.

* * *

Her eyes shine orange now, not red.

If Ain had to name a favorite color, it would be red. (Red like Elsword. It fits him well. Passionate, full of love, and drawing the eyes and hearts of all those around him.) So he's mildly disappointed to see her red go.

She loses her personality. The abundant supply of smiles dries up and the casual touches are nonexistent. Elsword looks pained. While Ain can't relate, he imagines Elsword feels like he's lost his sister all over again, except this time, she's nowhere to be found.

At their next battle, she slinks forward without regard for anything, and after it, the search party gathers around a campfire, except for two people.

Ain finds her silhouetted against the dusk sun. Clouds prowl over distant mountains, and the breeze is bitter with a hint of fall. The dried out summer grasses rustle by their ankles. Come winter, the rains will wash away the dust and bring them back to a green carpet. She looks at a point on the horizon, and though her face is blank, there is so much raw emotion in it that Ain thinks for a heartbeat that Ms. Knight Captain has been restored. But then the demon beneath her foot gurgles, and she stomps down on its horns. They shatter like glass. She crouches down and digs out the eyes slowly, meticulously carves a word with the tip of her sword deep into each of its cheeks. A gruesome sneer splits open her face. She looks at Ain with that expression, then walks off into the shadows, leaving behind the still living demon.

The stench of the dark el is overpowering. Ain is disgusted.

* * *

(Elesis knows perfectly well how Ain feels, because in truth, she feels the same.)

* * *

A/N: why am I starting another story!  
I don't know. I really don't know. I'm sorry my other stories.  
I had a really hard time describing how liking fighting feels like because I honestly have no idea.  
Classes: Arme Thaumaturgy (Richter later) and Crimson Avenger (Bloody Queen later)

Thanks for reading!


	2. underneath it all

Disclaimer: I don't own Elsword.

* * *

BY MY BLOOD

Being corrupted by the dark el is much more comfortable than it sounds. There's no pain, for one. There's also no stress. You stop caring about mostly everything. You're disconnected.

In a way, Elesis is still "Elesis".

She remembers the motions, ingrained in muscle memory. This is when you laugh, this is when you ruffle his hair, this is when you get angry if you want to be "Elesis". She knows how, she just doesn't want to do it anymore. It's tiring.

In a way, she's not "Elesis".

The actual process of corruption is not painful; what comes after is what is painful. Not physically. Mentally.

Anger, resentment, bitterness, hatred; the dark el runs on negativity. And so, like a virus, after it enters the host, it builds on those dark energies, makes it swell and grow until Elesis swears she'll choke on it all. (But it's impossible to choke on her own self.) It takes over, moves her arms, wrenches at her blood until she can't help but kill kill kill. The screams of the enemy are bubbles of air in murky water and their pain becomes an interlude of clarity. Then the symphony clamors again, corruption its conductor, its performance a song of insanity. She tells herself not to listen, but when it plays in her flesh, coagulates her blood, how can she not?

Elesis is/was the captain of the Red Knights. She is/was cheerful. She loves/loved her brother. She loved and loves to fight.

It's not about the killing, she reminds herself, as she hacks apart yet another demon. She decapitates it with ruthless efficiency gained through relentless practice. One slice to the right to declaw. A thrust to crack the shell. Another thrust to stir the intestines. A low kick to splinter the knee, and a well placed upward slash to cut off a leg and split the torso open diagonally. The blood sprays upward, missing her completely. She frowns. On the next one, a large demon that towers over the rest, she goes straight for the aorta. It's a literal blood bath.

It's not about the killing. She doesn't enjoy the killing, she repeats. Repeat, repeat, repeat. Roll all the repetitions together so it becomes her lifeline, her binoculars so she doesn't lose sight of the shore even when the ocean threatens to swallow her.

And it seems to work, in a twisted sense, because it's not about the killing. Even now, when that's all she does, it's still not about the killing. She never fights to kill.

She fights to fight. The killing is just a side consequence.

And likewise, she kills to kill, to quiet the darkness. The fighting is just a side consequence. (But it's not the fighting she craves.)

* * *

Elesis walks through the wasteland in a straight path, cutting all that blocks her way with an unbidden sense of glee. There is still one alive here.

She sees it as the sun kisses the peaks stacked against the horizon. The song in her head dulls as she thinks back on similar mountains she once gazed at as a child in Ruben. Her father's hand on her shoulder, Elsword's hand in hers, and the shouting of sparring knights in training. It was the last round of the day, and as they finished up, Elesis' father told her and Elsword that this would be them someday.

Elesis nodded and looked beyond them all, already wanting something more.

She'd found it in the currents of battle, and now she'd lost it again, in the tides of bloodthirst. (She'd wanted to feel, and now she feels unnecessarily.)

A wet, pitiful sound burbles from below. It's the one still alive.

Elesis blinks, and the next she knows there is a gruesome artwork completed beneath her hands.

Pristine white shoes in the corner of her eye. She looks up and Ain is there.

And she can't bear it.

She can't face his contempt, his judgement, or his gaze, which is nearly a mirror of her own

As she runs away, Elesis takes comfort in the fact that at least her heart is still her own.

When the dark el consumes her thoughts, she isn't Elesis anymore. She's just a beast, a monster out for blood.

When the dark el consumes her thoughts, she is still Elesis, because all the hate and bloodthirst are hers, just magnified. And underneath it all, Elesis' heart turns blacker, but it stays true to her: she hates what she's become.

* * *

A/N: As I plan this, Ain starts being less and less important...  
There was something else I needed to say but I forgot what it was.  
I'm trying to work on describing but the literally the only thing described here was Ain's shoes.  
And I realized when writing this that fluff-writing isn't for me, but I'll still try it out someday. Like tomorrow. Or now. Actually, now that I think about it, I might have written fluff before? My first fanfic might've been fluff. Idk bc I don't really think of it as fluff.  
Cough cough. It's called ERBLUHEN EMOTION and you can ACCESS IT by GOING TO MY PROFILE PAGE and maybe READing ALL THE OTHER FICS I WROTE. Cough. (Shameless self-promotion)  
And I finally found that the ship name for Elesis and Ain is Eleain. Hooray!  
Something that would make me happy would be someone else writing for this ship. They're good together, they fit! Write for them! Please!

And as always, thanks a lot for reading!  
(I swear my notes are longer than the actual fics)


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